“Since then, we’ve been off to the races,” says Warren Lasher, the Texas grid’s system planner. He appeared on a panel on solar and wind development in Texas at the SXSW Eco conference last week. Now there are about 6,500 wind turbines in Texas. You’ll mostly find them in the panhandle, and some on the coast. Texas is the biggest wind energy state in the country, and one of the largest wind energy producers in the world, with more wind capacity than France, Italy or Great Britain, as of the beginning of this year. (A federal tax credit – now being lambasted by some state officials and power companies – also helped.)